If Anthony Johnson and Daniel Cormier both showed up and fought to their full potential, I’d personally cap this fight at a probability of 50 / 50, but there are several X Factors at play in this matchup which makes me lean towards Johnson winning.
The first factor is of course Cormier’s tough weight cut. In contrast, Johnson looked excellent on the scales and it was visibly clear who was the healthier fighter.
The second factor is age. Daniel Cormier is now 38 years old. He has had almost 20 MMA fights and he has spent thousands of hours training in the gym and competing in high level wrestling contests at State, NCAA and Olympic level. There’s only so much a human body can take before it starts to break. Fighters tend to significantly decline from year to year after they reach the age of 33, which means that Cormier is well past his prime. Johnson and Cormier’s first fight was almost 2 years ago and a lot can change in that time when you’re in the tail end of your career.
The third factor is Cormier’s injuries. Cormier has suffered a lot of injuries and surgeries in recent years. Unlike in the pre USADA era, fighters can no longer use HGH to aid their recovery and many supplements are also banned. This is another factor which strongly indicates that Cormier won’t be the same guy that fought Rumble two years ago.
Of course it’s possible that Cormier could show up and look just as
good as he did back in 2015, but over the last 12 months we have learned
that older fighters and fighters who have had tough weight cuts tend to
badly struggle on fight night.
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